Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The U.S. Treasury again shied away from labeling China a currency manipulator on Tuesday...

Some U.S. politicians have argued that China has gained an unfair competitive edge in global markets by keeping the yuan artificially low to boost exports, and pressure has mounted in Congress for President Barack Obama to punish China. But the administration prefers to tread softly and use diplomacy to effect change.

The U.S. Treasury, in a semi-annual report, as usual said that statutes covering a designation of currency manipulator "have not been met with respect to China."...

At the heart of the friction between the two countries is a U.S. trade deficit with China that swelled in 2010 to a record $273.1 billion from about $226.9 billion in 2009. The cumulative Jan-Oct deficit with China is on track to top that this year, running at around $245.5 billion...

President Obama at the November APEC meetings, in his toughest words yet, told President Hu Jintao that China must play by global trade rules and act like "a grown-up."

MORE OF THE SAME

But U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the law on the FX report, which requires the administration to determine whether U.S. trade partners are deliberately undervaluing their currencies, is a poor tool to push Beijing on the yuan.

Instead, the United States prefers to argue for change at its regular closed-door meetings with Chinese officials...

"Hope and Change", heh.....

Some U.S. manufacturers, which have been hit hardest by competition from China and other emerging economies, would still prefer the U.S. government to take a harder line.

"China's currency is still enormously undervalued," said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an industry lobby for hard-hit textile, steel and labor groups.

"I'm disappointed that President Obama has now formally refused six times to cite China for its currency manipulation, a practice which has contributed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of American manufacturing jobs."

OBAMA: 'END-OF-LIFE CARE' TOO COSTLY!

"I actually think that the tougher issue around medical care... is what you do around things like end-of-life care.... I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here!"Barack Obama in an interivew with the New York Times - April 2009